ir a principal |
Ir a lateral
The sheet of reason folds between
and fiction crumbles to each side
a folly souring, tumbling,
catching on to the soaring in vain.
Below the sun, within my insistence
lies a man, enfleshed and walled in
corroded
a chord struck from his cerebellum
into the seething feelers, his doormat
feet, his welcoming opportunities for
breaking communication.
He is a careless depiction of truth
looking at itself in a shard of ice,
aware of its forgetting consciousness,
lost in the colder opposition.
Bowed down, he personifies a scrawl,
a tumbleweed fitting sideways into a
pax-deprived corpse.
Tactile
voices squint at his myth,
persuading him to forget his doings
to welcome his waitings on the stool,
going outward into memory's friendship
dawning again after a night of
being awake, faced.
This is how it feels, to be embraced
by the denied self, watered by feeling,
dowsing already ashes,
already stinging because of rifts and
supposings.
I frowned while the souvenirs
were reminisced and corporeally
timorous, before they synchronised
and came together a paradox.
I ask you now to sit with your reflection,
walking in the difficult directions
to the birth of a man of meaningness,
presently absurd
and living lives and life
as skinned synonyms.
I've spent the past few weeks examless and a couple of weeks before that semi-examless, yet I don't feel I've gone into the mindset of being on holiday. I say mindset because while I have been aware of there being a lack of needing to go to university and to study, all that energy has just been reallocated into other thinking, and some into non-thinking, which has allowed me to realise some things. In no particular order.
1) I take things far too seriously. Somewhere along the way that I can call my life, I switched, likely unconsciously, a switch that made me take whatever happens in my life with heavier hands and more attentive eyes. I think there's two sides to this. One, the 'serious' things that happen to other people (and myself as well), cannot be avoided, and years of counselling and advice-giving has made me think twice about the way they appear. A smile can be a smile. But a smile can conceal. And often what we conceal is what we want to run away from, perhaps when we ought not to be running away from it. The possibility of there being something seriously wrong in someone's psyche has made me think twice about why people do what they do, why they say what they say. And this is where the other side of the issue is revealed, because this, when applied to the majority of situations, means both misinterpretation but also a tendency to overreact to what others do and say. Simple jokes, meaning drenched in sarcasm, become harbours for hidden agendas. A little paranoia, here. And then, bitterness, when I realise those jokes were jokes and I took them seriously. Disappointment at myself for making myself into a fool, but also anger, whether it be towards the jokers, or the jokes themselves, or myself, the butt. Thus a balance is needed, a balance that I believe now to be struck by trust. The trust that whoever has something serious to focalise on, will be assisted in their way by whoever is in the best position to help them. Consequently, I withdraw my responsibility for the actions and feelings of others. If I am needed, I will be there. If I am not, I will not. Amen.
2) There is a difference between loneliness and aloneness, one discovered and clarified by some quotes from Osho. Loneliness is always in relation to the other, and thereby focuses on a lack of the other that is felt as a lack of self. Aloneness, on the other hand, is not relying on another, and simply being aware of the self. So aloneness is not lonely, because it is with the self. And that self relationship is the well from which all things aligned arise at the right time to be met and acted upon. Loneliness is a reflection of dependency, dependency which I realised I was harbouring towards my friends and acquaintances, as well as towards my brother and parents. I'd grown up expecting things of them, and many times they met them, and many times they did not and so I felt cheated, abandoned, a victim at their feet, unseeing his responsibility, my responsibility, for my own actions. I need them. I need you. That is loneliness, and what I want from it would never be fulfilled. It is not difficult to understand, though I am seeing it is taking some time to cement itself in my consciousness, because I have not been used to thinking that aloneness and loneliness were different, and that the previous is positive while the latter negative. I got used to co-dependency, and it is only recently, through pain and surrender to that pain, that I discovered that my fulfillment and joy does not lie in someone else's hands and therefore does not depend upon anyone else's actions. Instead, it comes from within. And paradoxically, it is true to say I am never alone, but I am always alone, since the self-relationship is the only one which is always there, and the more conscious I become, the more rooted I will be, and thus, nurtured and nurturing.
3) "Be fully invested in an effort, but not attached to the outcome." The words of Marianne Williamson. I've found myself so easily carried away into thinking I must control outcomes because success or failure depended upon my efforts, but I have learned it is not so. What do I know what a success is and what a failure is, because after all, they can both happen at the same time, because they are simply different perspectives on the favorableness of an outcome? I can see that things can be seen both as 'good' and as 'bad', so somewhere along the way I must have decided that everything needs to be seen as 'good' in my eyes, and I thought the 'good' was inherent in the outcome and not in the way it is seen. So I tried to fix the outcome, instead of fixing my lenses. I think this 'control' then comes from a faulty sight, seeing untruth as the truth. Knowing, then, that the outcome is neither 'good' nor 'bad' but just is, I do not have to control it, knowing that life will play its part in using whatever outcome it may be to its best use where it is most appropriate, something I cannot judge, but something that awareness itself can. I am grateful for that. It allows me to focus on what I am doing now, instead of what will come about. This, I want to carry on. Though I may stumble, I will allow that, unconcerned about 'getting there' but simply participating on the journey.
4) Having said what I have said about dependency and its affecting my mentality by giving me expectations of others that they need not be burdened with, I am learning to become more independent. Aloneness is sheer independence, according to Osho. I am not saying I do not need to depend on anyone ever again - I need not wall myself in and just meditate for the rest of my existence as this form. What I mean, instead, is that I can relate to others without being attached to them, or what they might do (the outcome). This way, I am not possessive. When I am alone, conscious of myself as myself, independent and thus aware that I do not need anyone else for fulfillment, I can fully invest myself in an activity, whether it is solitary or whether it involves another person. And what will come of that is then of its own accord, perhaps using me as a vessel, but not of me as a form. Amazing things can happen when life flows through. It performs miracles, it permits everything, and guides what needs to be guided back towards itself. Being a vessel for that, is, I believe, the point of this all. It is peace, it is joy. And it does not rely on the serious, unstable, inconsistent, uncertain, me. I am grateful to be.
Pinpoints in this relationship
are corneas for the indulgent,
those thoughts I harbored
as I stole from my own coffers,
believing them yours,
believing them rightfully mine.
I carried on, bending to a rule
that distance should be pinned
only by tempting opportunity;
thus I sewed dependent roots
and a tethered foundation,
wanting our minds tethered,
first believing my mind severed.
And I see my mistake,
in believing in my version of events
sediments of loneliness,
ere treasured sorrows.
It is evolution that has lit up
the hallways of my mind
to the reflections of shame.
I owe myself the attention I'd paid
to the wounded you I'd made.
I'm thankful it is as it is,
though it hurt, it was because
I'd kept my eyelids shut to
the world within without.
I seem to seek out relationships that fall under my categorisation of 'deep and meaningful'. Apparently, to me, that is the form of relationship that not only lasts longest but offers me most opportunity for growth.
I think I was under the influence of idealism when I made up that cockamamie criteria. I did not realise that I was unconsciously trying to fit every single friendship I had into that tight box which visually I picture as a plastic bottle rim that remains on the bottle after the lid is taken off. So, I feel ashamed, though I should cease judgment, to admit that it's really what I look for in all relationships - the capability of space and depth so the meanings of life can come through. I've been missing the point of communication. No wonder I feel lonely, but I think I had been too proud to look at myself in the mirror and see that how I was seeing other people was truly under a microscope that sought to penetrate through the skin to their core, a core I would have taken as a prize for my triumph over mediocrity. Pride again.
The realisation came to me this evening, sparked off by words a friend who said, after listening to what I had been saying about anxiety and borders between people and my fears that it was difficult to transcend them, that to him everyone is his friend. It's a simple attitude, a perspective, yet somehow I'd erased it from my consciousness from when I was younger. I am nice and respectful to others, yet from about the start of this year, I've been unable to properly connect with new people, save for some, because I'd always be thinking about what they were thinking about me or how I should act so that I don't budge any of their social protocols. I've trained myself to see these barriers, and thus believe in them as if they were real, so now instead of seeing faces I see walls with faces behind them. And my attempts are muffled as the sound refracts.
I resorted then to a method of connection that was deeper than skin, and thus not conveyable via words, though I tried that way, too. My friend respectfully, honestly and correctly pointed out to me towards the end of our dialogue, that I try too much to connect too deeply with people I barely know. This comes partly from the belief that I'd been attempting to learn that everyone is, within, the same, one. Mostly, I believe it comes from stubbornness and fear, a combination that disallows me the comfort of 'chit-chat' in favor of 'heart-to-heart'. I'm almost too keen to have heart-to-heart conversations because I feel more comfortable discussing the meanings of life and whatnot, in my pride thinking such things mean much more than 'petty' things that people talk about, from food, to the weather, to what happened yesterday. But in truth, 'hidden meanings' have no more meaning than 'meaningless banter'. That's because, save for rare occasions which subconsciously I believe I seek out in these attempts, introspection is based on my own semantics and thus just shows up more complex images of what I believe. To clarify, a cup can be a vessel of possibility, or it could just not match with a plate, both ways the meaning lying on different levels, and both missing the spaciousness before meaning where truth resides and reflects.
This is what I learned today - complexity is not only unnecessary but counter-intuitive. Life is simple, because there is only one truth. Trying to explain, analyse, understand this, is making nothing out of everything. I had been skipping rungs on the ladder of reaching people, believing myself able to simply go to the 'meaningful' shit without going through the 'chit-chat'. Yet I see it everyday, 'chit-chat', on Facebook, on the street, on TV, among people I know. I do it, too, but there's situations where I somehow believe myself capable of transcending it, but all I'm really agreeing to is a more complex version of chit-chat, one which I'm supposedly better at because I can speak formally and write poetry and think about different perspectives. But this stuff, even at this level, doesn't mean shit. It's just advanced chit-chat. Shit-shat. Sometimes there is truth being pointed to, yes, but mostly it's just an egoic attempt at feeling superior to others because I'm so darn special and capable of speaking in such rhetoric that you can either awe at or participate in. You don't get to know me better that way though, you just get to know my ego.
Bullshit. People are people, not fulfillment-givers. And if we are all one, then we are all connected to each other anyway. Talk is just a way of becoming aware of that connection. Shit-shat is a fancy way of asserting I'm better than you. Which I am not, but my ego's suicidally argumentative. But I'm not my ego. I am not bitter as a host for the insane. I'm simply there.
That's what I want confirmed anyway though, that you're there, when I talk to you. I try to be there when you talk to me. Sometimes I'm out back watching my ego shit-shat with your face, and my attention's swiped. I have this big idea that when you talk to me I'm going to have an epiphany and you're going to give me the answers to the problem that I've labelled 'life'. And if we do get to have a heart-to-heart, it'll be idyllic and wonderful, and we'll be vulnerable but strong (but it will be more of an ego-to-ego, permissibly self-conscious only because one ego believes the other to be more flawed than itself).
I'm just trying to understand this, that's all. Or am I? I don't know. I'm still shit-shatting.
The blemishes that I have never left
do not deny me my rejection,
For to no end, of love am I bereft
and no choice I make is but reflection.
The tailspin through the augur peace
I've traveled seeking rest.
None have given me the least
translation, no such kind gest.
Yet it must be for a reason that I lay
my hands upon the slate as clean -
I cannot fathom a further price to pay
but for my fears to merely seem.
Repetition, of partition, of repetition... we have a mission and it is in our lifeblood to protect it.
These thoughts somehow fit together on the screen. We see them not as a whole, but as something broken, divided by words. This is how we see the world, fragmented. Writing is an excellent reflection of it; it comes from it, does it not? It is an interpretive dance without the movement of limbs. Instead, oil lifts up above water. Words come up on the screen, no, colored pixels. The brain is trained to remind us of that which we attribute meaning to, and what that meaning is. And ultimately that that meaning never really was inherent in what it was attributed to. That part's not a special feature, but it is part of the film. The movie ends, sometime.
Caught amongst the feelings of grandeur, is a little boy. He's wee tall, wee small, wee wee-wee. The youngster accompanies the desire for love every where he goes, but he knows the desire for love is simply a shard of amnesia, forgetting that what it is looking for is in itself. How then, could I describe to you, and to me, that love is within us? Here.
I know your every move, you know mine too. And off the screen falls a place of enlightenment, somewhere where you can't see where you are going but that you know you inhabit. Already, there's a search going on for shadows, in the night, for emotions that are hidden in the most obvious of places. If only you looked during the day, when there is light, when the streetlights were off. That way, you could actually see, because in the light, love is most visible. In darkness, love is still there, but it is not visible to you because you choose to see with your eyes instead of your heart.
So I ask you, the writer, the reader, the interpreter, you, to look up in the light. There is no more to your pity than your bones, your body, your weaknesses and grievances. No more to your anguish than what you invest in it. No more to your loss than your lack of recognition. The light fails to see these, and instead merely shines. One day, sooner, you will know that the light shines so bright because it does not shine through anything. And the day that you will know that will be the day that you are uplifted and you will see. The truth. All of it.
We already are brothers. I just don't know it, but you do. I'll find out though, and you will have already known and will still know and when we both know, we will rejoice because are brothers. And that moment will be, and is, now.
So tell me, how do you feel? If you let it all go, it will fall apart.
But now we both know that life remains. And that's love.
The sound silent, a child speaks. Walk on, dream on, sing your song of peace and reign the world in your light. Be holy, be young, be forever. Smile, walk the path that you see ahead of you, it is there, revealed for you throughout the mountains and the plains, the doors of the spirit. Among those who you walk, who you stroll with your gentle feet, your face of glass, your unbreakable mirror. The reflection is one of you, of all, of what else there is that is not mentioned but seen, heard, because it shines brightly. The beat of the drum welcomes you, 'tiz the heartbeat of your soul. The unceasing rhythmical representation of breathing, the call of the wild, the rose without which red would have nothing to be compared to. The blood of the heart, the core, the walker among gardens. The singer is who you are, you smile, your voice fills the air as you create the world you step into and you expand as your love grows, burgeons, proliferates not as a balloon would until it pops but as a wholeness reminding the lost to awaken. Bring them to life, as you bring yourself to the light. Stairway, ye climb, ye go on, ye never fight but open your arms to the shine of other souls as they bring their own light and spark the heavens alight in a scintillation only thought of by the thoughtless, the bright, the pure, the Holy. You are whole, this is your inheritance, so talk yourself out of wanting to be someone you are not and reach out into this sphere of orbit and create.
No shards exist. Nothing is broken. Everything is perfect, that you must know. Disbelieve in the pieces, the parts of the sum of the whole of the heart of the lack. They are not within.
Teach only love, for that is what you are.
Avec condition
He lives in a box, in a field, of glass.
Scared it will shatter and slice him open, he does not like to move about much. He does not want to prod at the glass or go up for air. He is afraid of shards, reflections cutting deep. Deep enough to wound. Deep enough to kill. Yet inside he is using up all the oxygen and he cannot breathe for too much longer without getting out. The life he lives is a trap, a trap that promised love but delivered only a Valentine heart and a few red roses which soon withered anyway. In a desert, roses don't grow, they wither. In a desert, there is no water, so the roses wither. In a desert, without water, there is little oxygen, and so all he can see in amongst the dunes of sand are mirages. Dreams: open arms, innocent laughter, smiling, are merely chalk drawings on the sidewalk, to be washed away by rain. If he holds his hand out and opens his parched mouth, will his thirst be quenched by water that is not there to quench his thirst but to wash away the mirage? In a field of glass, in a desert of dreams, on a wall, in a box, he lies. He lies. And he doesn't even know it.
Sans condition
He lived in a box, in a field, of glass.
One day, before the oxygen ran out, he smashed the glass open. The shards glittered in the air as sunlight smiled. The first impact meant he was cut, a few bruises; conversely, the reflection perished, shattered under the feather of freedom. He had gained wings of liberty, able to soar beyond the yonder's reach into heavenly realms, distanceless. Here, the walls are crumbled and any dreams, any mirages, any illusions, are gone. Everything he is, is love, and so he sees, he feels, he breathes, he touches, he smells, he hears it being whispered in the wind, being grown within the glade. At the mouth of a river, water gurgles downstream, cascade-bound. And here he is, standing looking at the rush rush by, aware. Palms cupped, he lifts up a goblet filled with fresh water up to his parched lips and drinks. There is no thirst, for he has what he needs. He can breathe amongst the pines, the firs, the aspens, the poplars too. They share their oxygen with him who needs it. He smiles a grin of thanks. In such a place of peace, he is true. He is true. And love knows it too.
